


Two to Tango

by Redrikki



Series: Tango 'Verse [3]
Category: Dollhouse, Supernatural
Genre: Crossover, Demonic Possession, Extremely Dubious Consent, F/M, Gen, Mind Rape
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-11
Updated: 2013-08-14
Packaged: 2017-12-19 04:37:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/879548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing stays buried; not memories, not guilt, not the demon apocalypse. They always claws their way back up to bite you in the ass.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. C:Dos

**Author's Note:**

> I am not a psychologist, neurologist or an -ologist of any sort. All science talk is cobbled together from Wikipedia, anecdotal knowledge and my own imagination.

Miss DeWitt liked to claim that, in their resting state, the Actives were _tabula rasas_ , completely blank slates that could be filled and wiped clean at will. Of course, if she could stand to actually listen to Topher’s self-congratulatory techno-babble, she would know that wasn’t quite accurate. A truly blank slate would be as useless to the organization as an infant. An Active in its resting state had to be able to take instruction, report problems, identify a fork and know how to use it. Such memories are the human equivalent of Dos, to use a computer metaphor if you will. You can’t really do all that much with it, but you can use it to load Windows and all the shiny programs you want. In humans, it’s known as semantic memory and, in many cases, amnesiacs, even those who have no memories of their own names let alone specific events, still have it.

It’s more than that though. The human brain is not a computer with ones and zeros that any good magnet could erase. Each new memory forges new neural links, new pathways. Repetitive thoughts, repetitive actions reinforce these pathways like a groove on a well-paced floor. Tying your shoes, brushing your teeth, firing a gun; do it enough times and it becomes second nature. The organization could remove the conscious memories and slap on some new ones, but the pathways remained, buried. And, as Dean Winchester, if he remembered being Dean Winchester, could tell you, nothing stays buried. It always comes back up to bite you in the ass.

*****

A flapping noise like the wings of a bird made Sam pause as he packed the trunk. Everything was neat and orderly, just the way he liked it. This way, Sam could grab whichever guns and ammo he needed without even having to think about, let alone root though, the stuff he didn’t want. The sound came again and this time Sam looked up, wondering if Ruby was back from checking them out. 

“Where is your brother?” Dean’s angel asked, suddenly right in Sam’s face. 

Sam stumbled back, startled and defensive. “He’s not here,” Sam snapped, slamming down the lid of the trunk. “Don’t you have an apocalypse to fight? I know I do.” He turned away. There was a war on and he didn’t have time for angels.

Castiel, it seemed, did not know how to take a hint. “Where is your brother?” he repeated, reaching out to seize Sam’s arm. 

Sam jolted unpleasantly at the unwelcome touch. For someone who could barely bring himself to shake Sam’s hand the angel sure was grabby. “He’s safe,” Sam said, shaking off the offending hand and storming towards the driver’s side.

The angel pursued him around the car, his voice catching Sam as he opened to door. “His place is by your side.”

Sam’s hand tightened painfully on the handle before he slammed the door shut and spun to face the angel. “ _My brother’s_ place is by my side, but you” –he pointed an accusing finger–“left Dean, the Dean I _need_ in hell and brought back some broken shell. Well, I took care of it. I took care of _him_.” He spread his arms wide, daring Castiel to challenge him. “What did you do?”

Castiel regarded him with unblinking eyes, as completely unmoved by Sam’s anger as a mountain by a breeze. “Where is your brother?” he asked for a third time, focused and intent upon his mission without a hint of remorse for what he’d done.

“He’s safe,” Sam repeated, forcefully enunciating the words like an annoyed teacher with an especially dense student. Ruby had taken care of it. She’d wiped Dean’s memories of hell and hunting and masked his trail, hid his aura or whatever the hell it was she did. For once in his adult life, no one was gunning for him and without the memories Dean could be anyone he wanted. When Sam let himself think of his brother he almost envied him his freedom. “Dean’s safe.”

“No,” said the angel, his eyes bottomless wells of sadness, “he’s not.”

*****

Tango’s latest engagement was a romantic one, most of them were, and big surprise with mug like his. They were slow, boring jobs but Mack was no where stupid enough to want an exciting one. Today Tango was a professor, as gorgeous, brilliant and socially awkward as an early Daniel Jackson without the guns or space aliens. The client wanted someone who could stimulate her intellectually while she ushered him into manhood with her years of experience. Tango would still be mind-blowing in the sack of course, but Mack had long since given up trying to figure out how these people rationalized all this shit. Everyone was entitled to their own fantasies, especially if they had the money to afford them. 

Right now the happy couple were leaving the theater, probably heading to some pretentious coffee joint for some fruffy drinks with fake Italian-sounding names. The opera was over and Mack could safely activate the microphone in Tango’s cell phone without being subjected to _La Damnation de Faust_. Just his luck Professor Tango was in mid-lecture when he did. “–Conflated with the Fon-Yoruba legends of Eshu-Legba, god of the crossroads, teacher of the hard lesson,” he was saying.

The client laughed. “How do you know all this?” she asked like she hadn’t specifically requested they program the man with all this crap.

“Oh, I’ve been to the crossroads a time or two,” Tango joked. “It’s a great metaphor for choice though. Right, wrong, high road, low road.”

Mack sighed, about to turn off the listening device and get back to his iPod when an unfamiliar voice cut in. “Hey, I’ve got a choice for you.” Tango’s vitals abruptly spiked into the red and the engagement was suddenly exciting. “Your money or your life.”


	2. C:Dos Run

As he raced to the alley, Mack could hear Tango doing the sensible, if kind of cowardly, thing. “Here’s my wallet,” he was saying in the calm, soothing tones people used with big scary dogs and screaming children. “I’m handing it over. See? No need for anyone to get hurt.”

“Aw, sure there is,” the mugger said cheerfully. Mack turned the corner just in time to watch the guy shoot the client in the chest. The old biddy hit the pavement like a sack of potatoes and the bottom dropped out of Mack’s stomach. He’d just let the client get killed; he was so getting fired.

“Muriel!” Tango cried, falling to his knees beside her, hand’s pressed over the wound. The woman gurgled wetly, her feet twitched then stilled and Tango looked back up with murder in his eyes. His anger was as intense and focused as a lazer and Mack’s breath caught in his throat. Professor Tango should not look like that. That wasn’t a professor look. It was a look that promised to fuck someone’s shit up and it shouldn’t have looked so right behind the geek-y glasses. It shouldn’t be there at all.

The mugger laughed like it was the funniest thing he’d seen all night. “Wipe that look off your face, boy,” he drawled. “You ain’t him.” He leveled the gun even as Tango geared up to spring. “This is going to be so–”

He broke off with a gasp as Mack double tapped him in the back. The man half-turned as his knees went and for a split second his eyes looked completely black in the alley’s half-light. Then his eyes closed as he crumpled to the ground and the moment was gone. The righteous anger on Tango’s face dissolved into confusion and the beginnings of panic. “Everything’s going to be alright,” Mack said, holstering his weapon.

Tango nodded mechanically. “Now that you’re here,” Tango parroted, his shoulders relaxing and his hands loosening their death-grip on the front of the client’s dress.

Mack picked up Tango’s fallen wallet and knelt by the couple. The client’s pale face was slack and her lips had a distinctly bluish cast, but Mack pressed his fingers into the wrinkles of her throat on the off chance this wasn’t a complete disaster. She was still warm but there was no pulse. God, he was so screwed. Mack wondered if they would wipe his mind before they fired his ass.

“He’s not dead,” Tango’s voice broke up Mack’s pity-party like a cop at a rave. The Active’s hands still rested across the dead woman’s bosom, but his gaze was locked on the mugger’s corpse. He was shaking. 

Mack snorted. “Two to the heart? He’s dead.” Tango shook his head, his breath quickening into a panicked wheeze. Mack sighed; so much for that brief flash of badass. They need to get out of here. Someone would have heard the shots and he didn’t have time for this. “Do you trust me?” he demanded.

Tango’s eyes went dull. “With my life,” he whispered. He still looked kind of shocky, but for now his fears were buried under the comforting blanket of programing. 

There were sirens in the distance and Mack pushed himself to his feet. “It’s time for your treatment.” He offered Tango a hand up. The client’s blood squished unpleasantly between their interlocking fingers. Mack stepped deliberately on the dead mugger’s body and Tango followed him out of the alley as docile as a sedated child.

*****

Sam was dreaming. Ruby propped herself up on her elbow beside him and watched his eyes shuttle back and forth behind his eyelids. She wondered what he was dreaming about. Their recent hunt? The day of his ascension? His lost loves? Her?

“Dean,” he cried like a lost child and Ruby grit her teath. Of course it was _him_. Their fist summer together it was all Dean’s in hell, angst, angst, boo-hoo. It wasn’t any better once he got back. Suddenly they had to creep around so they wouldn’t offend poor Dean’s delicate sensibilities. Ruby had won, destroyed him in a way hell never had and he was still haunting them.

Sam groaned, his back arching off the bed. “Dean,” he yelled, his voice full of fear.

“Sam,” Ruby shouted, giving Sam’s shoulder a rough shake. “Sam, you’re dreaming.”

He awoke with a gasp, a hint of yellow flickering in his eyes as his power hammering against her for the instant before he recognized her. “Ruby,” he said and turned away. “Where’s my brother?” he asked the pillow.

Ruby sighed and flopped down on her back beside him. “I told you, he’s safe. Does it really matter _where_ he is?” There was silence from the other side of the bed and Ruby felt the sudden stab of worry. He hadn’t ever asked before. He always claimed his visions were gone, but what if he had dreamed true? “What brought this on?” she asked, struggling to keep her voice light.

Sam rubbed his hand across his face and shifted uncomfortably. “Castiel.”

The angel? Ruby almost laughed with relief; this she could deal with. “Castiel? The angel who wants to kill you?” She snorted. “You actually listened to that asshole?”

Sam pushed himself up on an elbow to lean over her. “Yeah, I did,” he said, his voice tight with anger. “Where’s my brother, Ruby?”

“He’s _safe_ ,” Ruby shouted, shoving Sam away and rolling out of bed. “I’ve saved both your lives,” she reminded him. “I’ve been to hell for you, let myself be tortured for you.” She’d found herself a recyclo-vegetarian body and put up with all his emo bullshit. She’d played nice with people she would have rather killed. She’d earned the right to be the hand that molded him, the voice whispering in his ear. “Don’t you trust me?” 

Sam turned from her without a word but his eyes said no.


	3. LOG OFF

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains serious spoilers for the end of _Dollhouse_. Read at your own risk.

Tom Petty sang about not backing down as Sam drove east alone. Ruby was back at the hotel, sleeping the sleep of the blissfully drugged. Once it might have troubled Sam how good he was getting at that, but tonight he had bigger things to worry about. Ruby would find him, she always did, and he had to make it to Bobby’s before that. Bobby would yell at him, call him ten kinds of idiot, but he would still help Sam figure this out. Not fix things, nothing needed fixing, but Bobby would help him find Dean. He just needed to see his brother. Ruby had said Dean was safe, but Sam wasn’t sure he could take her word for it anymore.

Twenty miles out of Flandreau, AC/DC dissolved into static in the middle of _Highway to Hell._ Looking right, Sam was almost relieved that it was an angel in the passenger’s seat. “You’re looking for your brother,” Castiel said. It was kind of hard to tell, but there might have been a hint of approval there.

Sam frowned. He didn’t need the angel’s approval. He wasn’t doing this for him. “Why do you even care?” he demanded.

Castiel regarded him unblinkingly for a moment before turning his gaze to the road. “He is needed.”

“Needed? To what? Kill Lilith?” Sam asked with an incredulous laugh. Dean hadn’t had what it took to kill Lilith even before he’d been to hell and back. Maybe with the Colt he would have had a chance, but without it? No, Ruby was right. It had to be Sam. Lilith couldn’t kill him before and he had only gotten stronger.

“Dean began this, it is his to end,” the angel intoned dramatically and Sam resisted the urge to punch him. That wasn’t an answer; it was melodrama. Dean hadn’t been kidding when he said angels were allergic to straight answers. 

“Began this? Dean didn’t start this,” Sam reminded the angel, “Lilith did.” Castiel said nothing, just gazed out at the night beyond the windshield and Sam’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. He’d spent enough years dealing with Dad’s need-to-know bullshit, he wasn’t going to take it from some angel. “Look,” he growled, “just cut the cryptic and TELL ME.” He took a deep breath and loosened his grip. “How did Dean begin this? What can you possibly think he did?”

The angel slowly turned to face him as if to emphasize how little he cared about Sam’s anger. “He broke the First Seal,” he said

The words hit Sam like a punch to the gut as his foot slammed on the breaks. The tires skid on the empty road and Castiel practically faceplanted in the dashboard, but Sam didn’t notice. “No,” he whispered, staring blankly ahead. “No,” he shouted, rounding on the angel. “Dean would never...” He knew his brother had broken in hell, who wouldn’t after thirty years of continuous torture. Dean may have tortured the souls of the damned, but he would never have help Lilith. He wouldn’t knowingly betray Sam, betray the whole world, like that. “He would never do that.”

“It was not intentional,” Castiel offered, his face strangely blank yet compassionate. “ _He_ was the seal. It broke when he did.”

Anger bubbled in the pit of Sam’s stomach. If that was true, then they had to have known what was going on. Sam had given up everything that mattered in this fight and they could have stopped it before it even got started. They could have gotten off their asses and saved his brother. “You knew,” Sam said, his voice trembling with rage. “You knew what was going on and you just let it happen. You left my brother there and you let her use him to start the god damn apocalypse,” he yelled. 

The angel looked away. “We laid siege to hell when we realized what was happening. We battled for years to reach him.” He turned back, eyes level and serious. “We were too late.”

Sam stared searchingly into Castiel’s eyes before guiding the car to the shoulder and turning the engine off. It was too big to wrap his mind around. Somehow Dean had damned the world and now he was supposed to save it? How could they even begin to demand that? Didn’t they understand the man they’d brought back? How broken he was? “You brought him back to end this. How is he supposed to do that?” he asked. “ How is he supposed to kill Lilith?”

“This is not about Lilith,” said Castiel. “ It is about Lucifer.”

“Lucifer?” Sam asked with a hysterical laugh. “If he can’t kill Lilith, how the hell is he supposed to kill Lucifer?” Before Sam had called in Ruby, Dean had been hitting the bottle every night. He’d handled himself alright on hunts but there was no way he could deal with the goddamn Morningstar. Maybe Dean had broken the first seal, but the angels were betting on the wrong Winchester to save the rest. 

Castiel shook his head. “Find your brother,” he commanded and was gone. Sam sat for a moment, seething with rage at the angel’s sheer arrogance. Sam wasn’t Catiel’s to command and he wasn’t looking for Dean for them. The angels wanted to use Dean like Lilith had used him, but Sam wasn’t going to let anyone use his brother again. He was going to end this himself, angels, demons and fate be damned. Sam put the car in gear and steered back onto the road. He had work to do.

*****

There was something satisfying in a schadenfreude sort of way finding out that someone else had botched an engagement for a change, Boyd thought as he looked at Mack. The man leaned over the railing, pinching the bridge of his nose like he had a headache. From where he stood, Boyd could see the new strands of silver amidst the red of the other man’s hair. The stress of this job might be turning Boyd’s hair grey but it was definitely turning Mack’s pink.

“I heard your engagement was, ah, eventful,” he greeted the other man. 

Mack turned, his hand dropping from his face as his lips twisting in a rueful smirk. “That’s one way of putting it,” he said with a snort. “The client got killed. It’s amazing I still have a job.”

“We’re not paid to take care of the client,” Boyd reminded him. “We’re here for them,” he said, gesturing to the Dolls on the floor below. His Echo was sharing a picture-book with Sierra on one of the couches just beneath them. Across the room by the treadmills, Mack’s Tango was kneeling to help Mike where the other Doll had apparently fallen.

Mack nodded, raking his hand through his hair. “Do you ever wonder about them?” he asked. “Where they come from?”

“Sometimes,” Boyd lied. He knew exactly where Echo had come from. What mattered, what he was here for, was where she was going and what she would become. As for the rest of them, did it matter? “Why do you ask?” 

Boyd considered Tango. They’d phased out the use of prisoners when other sources became available and he was too new to be one of them. Military maybe? The armed services sent plenty of PTSD cases their way and he had a certain look. Of course, Rossum had feelers out at hospital and support groups trawling for the recently bereaved. Tango could be one of those sad sacks. He could be anyone. 

Mack frowned slightly, his gaze fixed on where his Tango was trying to pull Mike to his feet. “When the mugger shot the client, Tango, he”-the man paused, struggling to find the right words-“he got this _look_ on his face.”

“Look?” Boyd repeated. 

“Yeah,” Mack nodded. “Like he was gonna kill the son of a bitch. And the shooter”-he shook his head-“he just laughed. Said Tango wasn’t him any more.” Mack took a deep breath and turned, leaning against the railing, to face Boyd. “Do you think he knew Tango, or whoever Tango was, from before?”

Boyd drew a sharp breath. They’re not ready to go public yet and they’re certainly not ready for another psychopath to be hunting their Actives. “Are you sure he wasn’t some Tango had dealings with on a previous engagement?”

“I don’t know,” Mack sighed. “I just”-he broke off-“I know how must of us got into this business, but I don’t know about them. Who knows where they get these people from? What if Alpha wasn’t some composite-event fluke? What if that’s who they are?”

Below them, Echo looked up from her book with a vaguely concerned expression as Tango helped his limping friend to Dr. Saunders’ office. Echo was Caroline’s concern without her bratty self-righteousness. Who was Tango? “Did you talk about it with Dominic and DeWitt?” he asked.

Mack’s lips twisted in an expression of cynical disgust. “They said not to worry. It was already taken care of.” He didn’t sound especially comforted.

Boyd nodded. He wouldn’t trust them either. After all, they said the same thing about Alpha.


	4. File Open

“Thank you, Mr. McAvoy. That will be all.” Adelle struggled to maintain her calm facade as she dismissed the handler. Tonight had been just one the series of disasters they’d had lately. A valued client was dead, one of their Actives had been identified and it was only through quick action on McAvoy’s part that the situation had been contained. God only knew what was coming.

“This could be a problem,” Dominic said as soon as the door had closed behind the other man. Adelle favored him with a thin, bitter smile. He didn’t even know the half of it. “If the shooter recognized Tango and knew that he had been erased then it could be a sign a serious security breach,” Dominic continued.

Adelle’s fists clenched in her lap. “I am well of that, Mr. Dominic,” she said, shoving herself up out of her chair before she remembered she couldn’t pace, not with him in the room. “What do you suggest?” she snapped. “Shall we send Tango to the attic?” As if that was even an option here.

Dominic flushed at the rebuke. “I don’t always suggest that, ma’am. I do think we should run a complete background check on the shooter. The police have the body, but his identity shouldn’t be hard to find.”

Adelle sighed. “There’s really not much point.” It would have been a perfectly logical suggestion if not for one key fact. McAvoy may have thought the shooter’s black eyes were a trick of the light but she knew better. 

“Ma’am?” Dominic asked with a quizzical head-cock that always reminded Adelle of the RCA dog.

Adelle turned from his questions and headed for the decanter of Scotch in the table against the wall. “Do not imagine that we are the only ones with our private army of puppets, Mr. Dominic,” she said, pouring herself a glass before turning to face him. “From the sound of things, our shooter was no more in control of his actions than Tango is.”

“So what do you want to do about this?” he asked, clearly confused but respectful as always.

“The only thing we can do, Mr. Dominic,” Adelle said, taking a sip. “Watch and wait.”

 

****

 

_“This is most unusual, I must say.” That was something of an understatement. The man  
in front of her had simply appeared at the office and demanded to become one of their dolls. A check of his fingerprints revealed him to be Dean Winchester, a dead man wanted by the FBI on an eclectic assortment of charges. _

_“Let me guess,” the man said with a smirk, “I’m your first volunteer to actually sign up without the blackmail and strong-arm tactics.”_

_So he thought he knew them, but it was a bit rich of a serial killer to claim the moral high ground. Adelle flashed him the thin smile the riposte deserved as she poured herself some tea. “You are somewhat older than our usual operatives,” she countered, taking a sip._

_“But oh so much prettier,” he replied. “This body” -he ran his hands down his front like a used-car salesman displaying his wares-“is hot, fit and recently refurbished with minimal scaring.”_

_Well, he was certainly sure of himself. Adelle raised a delicate eyebrow. “Scaring?”_

_“Hand print on the left shoulder,”he listed, gripping his left upper-arm, presumably where the scar was,“and a little nick in the tattoo over his heart.” He seemed especially smug about the last one as though he was sharing some particularly amusing inside joke._

_Adelle sighed. The man’s attempts at charming were becoming tiresome. “Tell me, Mr. Winchester,” she began, paying keen attention to his reaction to the use of his name, “what is it that you want?”_

_Winchester spread his hands wide, his face a picture of innocence. He was obviously smart enough to know she would have found out his name but foolish enough not to care. “I hear you like to help people. I need a place to lay low for a while.”_

_Adelle took another sip of her tea. “I should think being dead would be sufficient to evade the FBI,” she said coyly._

_The man leaned back in his chair with a sigh. “Oh, if only they were the ones who were looking.”_

_Adelle considered their guest. It was obvious he knew enough to be damaging, but also equally obvious he would not be going to the authorities. She would contact her superiors and have Dominic arrange a tragic accident. Decision made, she put her cup down, closed the file and rose to her feet. “We are not in the business of helping serial killers evade justice, Mr. Winchester,” she told him coldly. “I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”_

_An unseen hand pushed roughly against Adelle’s shoulders and forced her back into her seat. Winchester loomed over her, the bright green of his eyes suddenly transformed to a flat, deadly black. The sight filled her with a sudden, superstitious dread. “God good,” she whispered, “what are you?”_

_Winchester smiled at her fear and settled back in his chair. “What,” he repeated. “Good guess.”_

_Adelle’s hands tightened into useless fists in her lap as she struggled futilely against the invisible force. How dare he mock her. “What are you?” she demanded._

_“A demon,” the man answered her pleasantly enough. “Call me Ruby.”_

_“A demon?” Adelle parroted back. She could not explain the eyes or his seeming telekinetic abilities, but she refused to believe Winchester was a demon or possessed by one or whatever. She was a woman of science and logic, not theology and mysticism._

_Winchester, or whatever he was calling himself, shook his head at her scepticism. “Oh, Delly, Delly,” he mocked. “There are more things between hell and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”_

_Adelle grit her teeth and wished she could move enough to smash his smug face with the teapot, favorite set or not. “What do you want?” she ground out._

_The man threw his head back with a groan. “Don’t you people ever listen? I told you already. I need someplace to stash this body for a while.”_

_She had something he wanted. It seemed Adelle wasn’t entirely powerless after all. “And what do we get?”_

_“The same thing you get out of any of them,” he said with a shrug. “Five good years whoring Dean out to anyone you want to.”_

_He seemed inordinately pleased with the idea. Who, or what, ever Ruby was, he was not fond of Mr. Winchester. Adelle raised an eyebrow. “That’s it?”_

_Winchester spread his hands like a poker player laying his cards on the table. “That’s it. No trips to the attic and nothing too dangerous, but other than that..” He shrugged. “You just touch up that tattoo I mentioned and I’ll deal with the people looking for him.”_

_“Our security is quite good,” Adelle pointed out._

_The man snorted, amused. “For the FBI maybe, but they’re not looking for him.” He leaned forward, all humor gone from his face. “Do we have a deal?”_

_Adelle considered. She didn’t know what game Ruby was playing, but it all was just too pat for her tastes. “And what if I refuse?”_

_The air around her turned hard as the invisible grip holding her became painful. “Oh, Delly,” Winchester growled dangerously, “you really don’t want to.”_

_Adelle struggled to catch her breath. It was painfully obvious that her options were limited here. Fortunately, she had always prided herself on being able to make the best of even the worst hand. “Please,” she gasped, “let me show you where to sign.”_

 

*****

 

Adelle turned her empty tumbler in her hand. She needed to believe this was an isolated incident, she needed to believe Ruby’s protections still held. After everything with Alpha and Echo, not to mention the unpleasantness with Mr. Hearn, she couldn’t afford any more problems. She poured herself another Scotch. She seriously hoped she was wrong, but it looked as though Dean Winchester was shaping up to be nearly as big a problem as Caroline Farrell.


End file.
